


Almost Me Again

by neonheartbeat



Series: Filled Prompts [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Brainwashing, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, POV Ben Solo, Sex, Touch-Starved Kylo Ren, Vaginal Fingering, nothing is resolved because this is a oneshot i wrote in 5 hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:49:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25199554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonheartbeat/pseuds/neonheartbeat
Summary: Emotions have been deemed a danger to humanity, so every citizen over the age of five is injected every month to stop them from feeling anything: not anger, hatred, joy, or love, and society is tightly controlled with an iron fist. Kylo Ren, one of the Builders of the city who directly works for Leader Snoke, is a doctor who administers the injections, but one day he has a chance encounter with a woman who has never had the procedure, and his life sets on a different course forever.
Relationships: Finn/Rose Tico, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey & Rose Tico, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Filled Prompts [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1138814
Comments: 97
Kudos: 319
Collections: Galactic Idiots Collection





	Almost Me Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TourmalineGreen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineGreen/gifts).



> This is a filled prompt from Fran @galacticidiots on twitter AND for Trixie who owns my whole ass horny heart. I won't be making a sequel or fleshing out anything to this, sorry! But I do like it.

**I.**

The first time Ren sees her, it’s in a dark alley, lit only by the neon glow of the overhead signs flashing advertisements for Neuronox and Paxanimo. She’s running, and that’s out of place: nobody runs unless they’re on a treadmill for the recommended thirty minutes daily of cardiovascular exercise. He knows, because he helped design the healthcare system. 

She’s running, a hooded figure he can only tell is female because of her shoulder-length, free hair and her delicate face, and she’s not wearing the plain khaki uniform most citizens wear, nor is she wearing the black uniform he’s entitled to as a Builder, nor is she wearing the pale blue, high-necked coat of a physician. She’s wearing brown and green, scarves trailing off her body like clouds of smoke, and Ren freezes in his place as he watches her leap up effortlessly, grab a rusted fire escape, swing herself up and over, and slip in through an open window three stories above the street.

He should report her. That’s a safety violation, and two uniform violations all in one: nothing to get dragged to the Cooler over, but still a violation. But something about the way she had moved was intriguing— she had hesitated on the edge, catching herself, and her face had changed into an expression he’d seen many times in his theater, preparing patients for Neuronox administration— most of them very small, under three years old, or sometimes four. Never over seven years old. It was fear, and he did not feel it, just like everyone else he treated.

 _You have to allow time for the brain to learn to understand danger and self-preservation,_ he remembers Leader Snoke saying to the Board at the last meeting when he’d defended the policy of waiting so long to nullify the problems caused by emotions. _Otherwise you’d have people walking into roads, train tracks, off buildings. We want humans, not mindless androids._

Snoke is wise. He knows that. Ren’s fingers brush his black coat as he pulls it higher to ward off the cold foggy night, drifting over the silver pin that marked him as one of the elite Builders. A right-hand man. An architect. This city was free of terror, free of fear, free of anger and hatred and all the things that caused so much divisiveness between humans, and that was a good thing— Ren himself cannot remember a time when anything was any different, when he wasn’t required to go in for his monthly injections to block his brain from producing so much pesky dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins.

But the girl had looked _afraid,_ and that was worth looking into. 

He sets his shoulders and walks to the building.

**II.**

The building is empty.

 _I hallucinated her,_ he thinks, turning back to the street. He’ll check his levels when he gets back to the office: it’s close to time for his next treatment, and sometimes the heightened hormone levels can cause hallucinations, though it’s rare. He could call a car, but it’s a quiet night, and he doesn’t mind the chill: he’s never known anything else. So he walks all the way back, his black boots clacking gently on the concrete, his breath coming in foggy bursts in perfect, measured cadence. 

_Her hair was free._

Female citizens aren’t supposed to wear their hair down. It’s required to be kept off the neck in military-style regulation buns, tight and drawn at the nape: Ren remembers seeing women skirt the rule a long time ago, letting loose strands frame the forehead, the cheekbones— but that was before the police started catching them and shaving their heads in prison, turning them back onto the streets with buzzed, male style-hair. Ren can’t remember the last time he saw any woman’s hair loose, unbound...

A memory flashes into him at the speed of light: a woman with braids, long braids and long brown hair, a smile, warm eyes. _I love you so much, Ben._

No. He shakes himself. That’s a false memory: his mother died long ago and he does not remember what _love_ means. He barely remembers who _Ben_ is: there’s only ever been Kylo Ren. 

He clenches his fist, just to see how tightly he can force it closed, and only releases his fingers when his knuckles begin to turn white.

* * *

The girl begins to haunt his thoughts, day by day.

She shouldn’t have had so much power over him, and he knows it, but he can’t stop thinking about the green and brown, the loose hair, the fear in her eyes, the lithe young body swinging up to the fire escape. He starts to get sloppy, and Snoke hates sloppiness, but he can’t bring himself to care anymore: he’s searching for her in every shadow, every corner. 

It comes to a head when Ren finds himself staring at a little girl in regulation khaki, her scared, wet blue eyes staring back up at him as her serene parents wait, and he sets the needle down and walks out of the room, feeling dizzy with rebellion. 

Snoke explodes on him like a nuclear bomb an hour later in front of the whole Board. “You were _promising!_ You were my _top man!_ I had such high hopes for you, and _look at you_ _:_ defying me, defying everything we worked for, defying your own _destiny._ Useless!”

He’s stripped of his black and put into khaki. He’s dragged to the Cooler, eight floors down below the earth in the middle of the island in the river by the city, and thrown into a massive holding cell lit by stark, colorless fluorescents in the dead center that leave the edges of the room in shadow, the one he knows is reserved for the worst criminals, the highest order of degenerates, the people who evade order. 

He knows, because he helped build it.

But it’s empty: it’s a chamber a hundred feet wide and fifty long, and after he walks the perimeter he sits in the center of the floor and waits. To die, maybe, or to sleep: he’s not sure, and he doesn’t care. Food is brought. He eats mechanically, then sleeps, and counts his sleepings, because there’s no daylight down here.

He thinks he hears whispers in the dark. _My mind is an enemy: it will try to play tricks on me,_ he tells himself, and ignores the whispers, instead cataloging what he has to occupy his time.

Prison uniform: drab brown, long-sleeved shirt with a wide neckline, long pants that are a little too snug around his thighs. He’s not a small man, and he wonders who last wore them. He has gray cotton underwear, but only the one pair, and a pair of olive-brown flat shoes, the slip-on kind that used to be called _espadrilles_ before language was unified. His hair, normally cut short in regulation even though he could have gotten away with longer by virtue of his position, is growing out: it almost brushes his collar. Ren sits, and he sits, and he sits, and the time draws on and on.

 _I’m going to miss my injection,_ he realizes, and that is a concerning thought: he would be worried if he could be, but he can’t.

Not yet.

**III.**

It comes in slow, gradual waves, this hostile takeover of his body by a brain insistent on dumping chemicals into his bloodstream. Ren’s palms are sweaty when he wakes, his heart beating so fast he thinks he’s in medical distress, and he can’t stop shaking. He’s nauseous, and even worse, something’s wrong with his penis: stiff and painful between his legs, throbbing in time with his rapid heartbeat. 

_I’m dying. I’m dying._ The thought makes his body’s reactions worse: his hands are trembling, and his eyes are burning: they start leaking, and he thinks _my eyeballs are melting and leaking out of my head!_ before he scrabbles at his face and reassures himself that, no, he is not going blind, his eyes are producing hot, saline water. 

The symptoms of this peculiar ailment seem to spread to his lungs: he can’t breathe evenly, and his throat is making bizarre sounds he doesn’t understand as he kneels on the floor and hugs himself, trying to keep from being so loud as more fluid leaks down his cheeks. _I’ll get dehydrated,_ he thinks, gasping for air between spasms. “Water,” he croaks aloud, trembling. “Water. Please.”

The metal door creaks open.

“I know you,” says a voice, light and female and firm, and he jerks his head up to see—

 _Her._ She’s in the same prison drab he’s wearing, but her hair is unmistakable: brown, shoulder-length. She is— he would have said _symmetrically-formed_ a month ago, but at the sight of her some new flood of symptoms rips through him like lightning, and he finds himself thinking a word he hasn’t seen used or used himself except as a qualifier for other adjectives: _pretty._ She has freckles on her pointed, perfect nose, and large, perfect eyes, and a mouth that turns up at the corners, and his heart starts beating even faster, his hands shaking uncontrollably. “Don’t,” he says, scooting away from her on his knees. “Don’t come closer.”

“You’re that Builder who saw me climbing and didn’t do anything,” she says, and squats down. “Rose! Finn! Look! I _told_ you I wasn’t crazy!”

He’s never heard anyone speak like this, not in tones like this, or tones ever, come to think of it, and he cringes away as two more people emerge from the shadows: a woman, short and full-cheeked, her black hair cut short across her eyebrows in defiance of the dress code; and a man with dark skin, close-cropped curls, and a warm expression on his face. “Holy fucking shit,” says the man, looking at him. “That’s Ren, that’s the doctor who oversees all the Neuronox injections for the whole district.”

Ren’s never heard anyone curse like that before. He shrinks back, covering his face with his arms to try to calm his heartbeat, and the woman (Rose, it must be, which would make the man Finn) says, “Why did they throw him in _here?_ ”

“I thought Poe would be in here, not him,” says the girl. “We can’t leave him here.”

“Rey,” says Finn in a soft, slow voice that Ren can’t understand the meaning of, “we can’t take this guy with us. We’re on short time as it is, and we still have to find Poe.”

Trying to work past the realization that he now has a name for the girl, Ren thinks, _Poe._ He knows that name: Dameron, the high-level criminal convicted of trafficking children across the border into Canada a year ago. “Poe Dameron,” he says, making an effort to speak clearly, “is located in Cell Block 2187, one floor up. Cell number 56.”

“How do you know?” Rose says sharply, an edge to her voice.

“I assisted in sentencing him,” says Ren, trying to gather words. “Just… go. But I need water, I don’t know why I’m leaking like this, and I need, I need— more Neuronox, you have to, have to call someone to help me, to give me—”

Rey crosses the floor and kneels down by him, pressing her hand to his cheek as he shudders away from her touch: it makes his gut wrench and body ache even worse, and he doesn’t know why. “We can’t leave him here. Look at him. His cortisol levels are probably insane.”

Finn addresses him, then. “How old were you?” he asks, looking at Ren with dark, kind eyes.

“What?” Ren gasps, unable to think.

“When they gave you your first shot. How old were you?”

“F-five,” Ben says reedily, trying to stop the wet discharge coming out of his eyes. _Tears, that’s what they are: I remember now. I read about them in my medical texts, they’re supposed to lubricate the eyeball but an imbalance of emotions will cause an overproduction…_

“Five,” echoes Finn, looking grim. “Rey, he could go into cardiac arrest on the way. His body’s not prepared to handle a complete withdrawal. You know how I was when I got off— had to wean off on half-doses for almost a year.”

Rey’s face goes hard like concrete. “I’m not leaving him here. He didn’t report us: that shifty DJ guy Poe knew who turned out to be a double agent did, and he’s— he’s in here, so he must have done something _big._ ”

“I refused,” Ren says, weak and thin. Why does everything hurt so much? “A shot. She was… four, and she was… she was... “ A strained gasp, a choke for air escapes his throat as he looks for the right word. “She was _scared…_ ”

Rose nods. “Right, no, we can’t leave him. Come on. Get him up.”

So he’s dragged to his feet and guided out of the cell, past the doors, and down a hall in a blur of motion and light that he can’t comprehend: Rey finds Poe and breaks him out, Poe supports him on one side and Finn on the other, Rose and Rey navigate out of the prison and into the rocky back courtyard, where the sunlight is so bright Ren almost gets sick and a rickety old speedboat is waiting for them.

“Bright,” he croaks, shielding his eyes as he lets them guide him into the boat. 

“The sun just went down,” Rey says, helping him lie down in the bottom as Rose takes the wheel and starts the engine. “Just close your eyes and breathe.”

“They’ve spotted us,” says Poe in a tight voice, staring up at the walls as a siren begins to wail. Ren notes his face, so different from the face he recalls from the trial: he’s grown a thick beard, his dark hair shaggy and long and streaked with silver. He can’t remember the last time he saw a beard on a man. Tearing his eyes away from it is like trying to look away from a building on fire.

“Go!” shouts Finn, and the tone startles Ren out of his reverie: why do these people raise their voices like this? But Rose jerks the boat to life and slams the accelerator, and they weave away as the gunfire from the walls opens, disappearing into the heavy fog of the dusk over the river.

**IV.**

They go to a safe house. It’s more like a dilapidated warehouse furnished with things Ren has never seen before and can’t understand the meanings of, and Ren sinks down into a sofa and curls up, trying to quiet his racing heart and lungs as the others move around him, past him, talk over him. Plates clink, something hums, something beeps, and a violently rich scent fills the air. It’s nothing like his own home— his old home, he amends to himself: the quietness of gray on gray, black shining counter where he heated his pre-packaged and pre-made nutrition in plastic trays, bland and filling and orderly.

“Come on,” says Rey in a soft voice, and he looks up to see she’s shed her prisoner disguise, and she’s wearing clothes he doesn’t know or understand the significance of: a cream-colored top with no sleeves, a brown pair of pants. The sight of so much skin makes his throat go tight and his belly roil in an unfamiliar sensation. “There’s a sleeping area over up in the loft.”

He tries to explain. “The smell—”

“I know,” says Finn, putting something brightly colored into his mouth and chewing. “It’s crazy. When I was being weaned off, I couldn’t stand the smell of real food. Overpowering. But you’ll get used to it.”

“Can you just make him some oatmeal?” says Rey, helping Ren stand. “It’ll be bland enough for him to digest. He needs a shower.”

“Maybe I should help him with the shower,” says Finn, his eyebrows drawing down into an expression Ren can’t decipher. 

“Why you?” asks Rey.

“Because—look, Rey, I’m not gonna talk about this in front of you, but there’s some… side effects I remember that you don’t really need to see.”

Her eyebrows draw down to almost touch her nose. “Just because I’ve never been on Neuronox doesn’t mean I can’t handle—”

“My penis hurts,” says Ren pitifully, and Rey’s cheeks turn bright red as Finn covers his eyes with his hand. He blinks, confused: was that the wrong thing to say? Maybe he should explain. “I mean… not really hurts. It’s, it’s very hard. I don’t know why—”

“Oh, Christ,” says Poe, mouth full of food in the kitchen area. “Yeah, Finn, maybe you _should_ help him in the shower.”

“I’m not helping him like _that,_ ” says Finn.

“Like what?” asks Ren, hopelessly lost. His heart’s beating too hard again, his vision blurring: he can’t understand and these people are talking over his head, as if he’s a stupid child again and not a man of thirty. He suddenly has the terrifying urge to hit something, and controls it, only clenching his hands into tight fists at his sides. _I’m going to lose control. I can’t lose control._

“Stop,” said Rose firmly, stepping forward. “You’re going to freak him out. He doesn’t understand what’s happening to him, and you’re not being straightforward. Neuronox-injected people can’t grasp nonverbal or non-straightforward communication well: you _know_ that.”

Ren sinks down to his knees, trying to fight the heat welling up behind his eyes again. “I’m not stupid,” he manages.

“Of course you’re not,” says Rey with some force, kneeling down by him. Her face is still red, but she soldiers on, every word calm and clear. “Okay. There, there is a way to fix your… your penis, and your other symptoms. You’re experiencing a cortisol and adrenaline dump, which is causing stress and anxiety, which is why you have a rapid heartbeat and sweating and erection— that’s what it’s called when your penis does that. It’s just a biological reaction of your lower circulatory system.”

“But that’s… mating behavior,” he says, lost. “I’m not an _animal._ Nobody, nobody has erections unless they’re on medication to reproduce with their partner.”

“Well, nobody under the influence of Neuronox, no,” says Rose, also very red in the face. 

“Why are you both so red?” he asks blankly. “Are you too warm?”

“No,” explains Rey, rubbing her nose. “Um, we’re just embarrassed. You’re not— I mean, generally, people don’t talk about personal things like this with strangers or friends. Just with, you know. Partners.”

“The personal thing being your genitals,” supplies Rose. 

“Oh,” says Ren. That seems strange, but he wants to make Rey happy, so he nods. “Okay. I don’t… you don’t have to be embarrassed. You can stop talking about it.”

Finn makes a noise like a string of strange, interrupted shouts while smiling with his teeth bared and mouth open, and Ren recoils: he’s never heard anyone do that before. “Sorry,” says Finn, stopping the noise and holding his hands up in a gesture Ren does understand: surrender. “You want to get a shower on your own, or you want help with your—”

Ren suddenly understands that he does not want Rey to be embarrassed or uncomfortable, and lets his brows draw down to mimic the expression he’d seen on the other faces. “No. I’ll shower on my own.”

Finn opens his mouth, but Rose puts her hand on his arm. “No,” she says softly, “don’t say anything. Let him work it out.”

* * *

He lets Rey take him to the shower, which is really more like a wet-room, tiled everywhere, plumbed with running water, and she leaves him in there while she goes to find fresh clothes. Ren strips and turns on the water as hot as he can stand it, shuddering as goosebumps rise on his arms and legs, and then he washes himself methodically clean from head to toe. Face, shoulders, neck: his broad chest (smaller than he remembers, because of the time spent in prison), his back, his thick pale arms, his sides, his belly.

Ren pauses at his penis. It’s still very hard, and starting to turn a shade of dark red at the tip, where it’s the most sensitive when he touches it to wash it, and the _feeling_ as his hand slips over it to wash away sweat and grime… his knees almost buckle. He does not want his knees to give out: that’s dangerous and he might hurt himself. So he grits his teeth and continues washing everything: his swollen, aching penis, his heavy, soft testicles hanging behind it in their thatch of dark, crisp hair, his thighs dusted with dark hair that’s matted to his pale, freckled skin, his bruised knees, his calves, his feet. 

He... would like to touch it again. He thinks about it as he turns off the water and dries off, as he avoids touching it directly. _Maybe just a swipe with the towel. I do need to dry it off…_

The sensation of the rough fabric on his flesh is too much, and he cries out in discomfort, sitting down hard on the teak wood bench with his knees pulled in and his penis standing straight up between them]… and Rey hurries in, eyes wide, mouth open. “Ren?” she asks, looking at him, then looking away, at the wall, while her face blushes red as his heat-flushed chest.. 

So: she’s embarrassed again, he’s embarrassed her, and he does not like that fact. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out, covering his groin with one hand. “I, I— I was trying to dry off and it _hurt._ ”

“Well, you can’t be so rough,” she explains, shooting him a look and walking a little closer. “It’s a sensitive area.”

“I didn’t… know,” he confesses, wanting to hide from her: what did you call the feeling of wanting the ground to swallow you whole? “It’s never been like this.”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and seems to think for a moment. “I could… help you,” she suggests, glancing up. “If you’ll trust me.”

“Please,” he all but begs, “please, yes, fix it.”

“Okay,” she says, and kneels down in front of his legs. “Okay. Knees apart. Put your hand somewhere else. I won’t hurt you. This might feel strange, but it won’t hurt.”

“Okay,” he echoes, and eases his thighs open, lifting his hand. She looks very small, and her fingers touch his knee as she comes in a little closer: the feeling of her touching his skin is— it’s—

Rey slides her hand up his thigh as she reaches for his penis with the other. Nobody’s ever touched him like that and something _breaks_ inside him: his whole being unravels as his testicles draw up and his nerve endings fire off all at once and he’s _dying,_ he’s dying, he has to be dying because he’s crying hoarsely aloud, his vision blurring, he’s shaking and trembling and white sticky fluid is spraying out of his penis as shocks tingle through his pelvis and his spine feels like it’s dissolving and it won’t stop, it won’t stop and he can’t possibly live through this, so he must be dying.

He can hear her speaking as he sobs for air, his back against the cold tile wall. “Hey, hey. Ren. You’ll be okay in a minute. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

Well, if she’s saying it, it must be accurate. Nothing had ever prepared him for this: Ren forces his eyes to open, fighting the hazy, awful, muzzy sensation that’s descended over his whole body like the fog outside, and sees Rey, her hand still on his thigh, frozen in place, her free hand wiping pale stains of goopy fluid from her chin. 

_I got it on Rey._ He experiences again that sensation of wanting the earth to eat him alive, but it’s muted, distant under the fog of hormones clouding his brain. “Rey,” he croaks, unable to put a sentence together. 

“Better?” she asks, and he looks down: his penis is softening, the ache gone. His brain feels like he’s trying to reason and think through clouds, but the sensation dissipates rapidly, leaving him with peace and clarity of mind. 

“Yes,” he says. “I didn’t intend to do that… on you.”

“I don’t think you intended to do that at all,” she says, smiling gently. “It’s fine. Not the worst thing that’s been splattered over my face.”

“What… what _was_ that?” He struggles to sit upright, and Rey stands, her warm hand leaving his skin. He doesn’t like that. It would be nice if she touched him again… but if _that_ happens every time she does, maybe it’s better for him to keep his distance. 

“An orgasm,” says Rey, very matter-of-factly. “You can give yourself one, which is easy, or do it with another person by having sex, which is harder, but a bit more fun. Headache reliever, stress reliever, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin dump.”

“How do I give myself one?” He peers down at himself dubiously, then looks back up at her. “And how do you not, how do people not just do this all the time?” Doubt suddenly overtakes him. “Leader Snoke always said that if we didn’t control urges like this, we’d all descend into anarchy— he must be right, because, because if people can _do this_ all the time, they wouldn’t do anything else—”

Rey sighed. “Do you see _me_ doing it? Finn? Poe? Rose?”

He hesitated. “No.”

“Right. Because you can learn to handle and control your own emotions and urges without someone jabbing a needle into your brain to block everything for you.”

Ren can barely breathe: that’s completely antithetical to everything he’s worked on for years. “If that was true, why did we have so many wars?” he demands. “People fighting over food, land, water, livestock—”

“Because people disagree and they fight. That’s what we do. But we can be better without drugs taking away part of who we are.”

He shakes his head. Why can’t she just _agree_ with him? His heart’s pounding again, and his fists are clenched: he doesn’t understand this emotion. “But it’s an unnecessary part of who we are. We don’t have to be controlled by our emotions anymore.”

“If it’s so unnecessary, why don’t you give Neuronox to newborns?” she demands, crossing her arms and shooting him a look he thinks might be angry. That makes his stomach wrench: he doesn’t want her to be angry. “Huh?”

“Because— because infants can’t communicate: they have to rely on their emotions to alert caregivers that something is needed.”

“Okay, so when they’re two years old, why not then?”

His heart is pounding. “Because years two to three are crucial in developing instinct and preservation skills—”

“Yes, which are developed by _emotions_ ,” she says, an edge to her voice. “And then you put a needle in a child’s brain at the age of five to stop them from ever feeling emotions again. Because Snoke decided there’s an arbitrary point where you stop needing emotions. But you _don’t._ ”

He jerks up off the bench and realizes for the first time he towers a head over her. “Because he’s _right,_ ” he snarls, his voice breaking at this new intonation he’s never used before. “He’s right, he has to be right—”

“Why?” Rey practically shouts at him. “Why? Because if he’s wrong, it means you wasted your life?”

And that _hurts:_ that cuts deep like a knife, a physical pain in his chest. “Stop,” he gasps, shaking his head. “No, no, no—”

“You _know_ I’m right,” she insists, advancing on him. “All those things you’re feeling right now are _good_ for you, Ren—”

“They can’t be good for anyone if they _hurt,_ ” he sobs, backing up away from her into the wall. She’s an inexorable force of nature, though, and keeps coming until she’s got him pinned there. 

“Pain is _okay,_ ” she says. “Pain warns you, pain lets you know you’re alive and human.”

“ _Physical_ pain!” he barks. “Not, not _this_ —”

“Yes, this,” she says. “Guilt tells you that you’ve done something wrong. Jealousy tells you that you think you’re owed something someone else has. Shame is how you know you’re conscious of yourself, and lets you evaluate your actions— and then there are positive emotions and those can hurt too. Happiness can bring you to tears, and exhilaration can make you feel as big as the sky, and love—”

“I don’t want to hear this,” he spits between his teeth, shaking.

She evaluates him and steps back. “Okay. What do you want?”

“I want. I want food.” He covers his aching eyes with his hands. “And sleep. I just want to sleep. I’m so tired.”

“There’s one bed in the loft. It’s mine. You want to share?”

“I don’t care,” he says tiredly, and follows her out as if he’s in a dream to change into his new clothes. 

* * *

The oatmeal is all he can handle at first: sticky and gluey, the flavor not quite overwhelming, but enough to give him pause the first time he tries it. Rose jokes about adding in fruit later and he offers a weak half-smile, which feels foreign on his face, but it seems to make the others more relaxed around him, so he makes an effort to do it a little more often. 

Rey hovers. She sits and watches him eat, and after he drinks a glass of water she leads him up to the loft and shows him the bed, which is nothing like his sleeping pad at home: that one rolls out on the floor, and this thing is ancient—a mattress mounted off the floor on a frame of wrought iron, half-rusted, the blankets a cacophony of color and patchworks. He sits on it gingerly, unsure if it will support his weight, but it doesn’t budge, and it’s _soft_ , really soft. He almost sinks into it. 

“You can sleep however long you want to,” she says, and that, too, is new: he’s never not had a schedule. “I usually go to bed around ten at night, and it’s eight now, so I’ll be up here in two hours, and I’ll try not to wake you. Oh, and here.” She reaches under the bed and pulls out a blanket.

“There are many blankets already on this bed,” Ren says, trying to work out what she’s doing as she unfolds it. “I don’t need one more.”

“No, this one’s special. It’s weighted. It’ll help you.”

He considers that, then takes off his new shirt and gets into the bed. The sheets are knobbly with age, but the mattress is like sinking into luxury, and he closes his eyes as Rey settles the weighted blanket on him, and _oh,_ that’s good: like a full-body embrace, a comforting presence. Ren feels his body relax almost instantly, his manic heartbeat slowing to a normal pace. “You’re right,” he allows, half-asleep already. 

“I usually am,” she says, and tucks it carefully around him. “Sleep well.”

He’s unconscious before she reaches the ladder down to the main floor. 

* * *

The days pass, then weeks. Ren tries food, more food as Finn suggests it: toast, toast with butter, milk, fruits and vegetables from the garden Rose is maintaining in the back, chicken soup from a can, tomato soup (which makes him gag), crackers. He notices his face is changing in the mirror in the bathroom: the sunken hollows under his eyes are disappearing, his hair is growing longer, his smile is becoming more natural.

He starts working with Poe to map out trucking routes, helping avoid checkpoints he knows were set up recently and that they didn’t know about: he gives Poe passwords and information he needs to get past any checkpoints he does have to hit. Poe decides to shave his head bald and keep the beard, which makes him look about fifty years old and also nothing like the wanted posters that are pinned on every Justice Station in a fifty mile radius. Rey helps him fix his truck, and he leaves for long stints, then comes back every so often, but the interims are always cold and wary, waiting for word.

Rose shows him how to care for the garden: planting, watering, weeding. She has a whole section devoted to plants that don’t seem to bear any use, but that have enormous blooms, and he understands that they’re _pretty,_ and that their purpose (besides to coexist with bees in summertime) is for no other purpose than to make a room look nice, so he helps her cut them and put them in water and arrange them around the warehouse.

“Does Rey like flowers?” he asks Rose one day as they’re pruning her white rosebush, doing their best to avoid thorns.

“She does,” says Rose, smiling at him. “Would you like to put some in your room?”

“It’s not my room,” he says, focusing on a bloom. “It’s hers.”

“I meant you share it,” says Rose, snipping off a dead branch. “Your, plural. Y’all’s, if I was from the South in the old days.”

Share it? He guesses they do, although he rarely sees her at night or in the morning even though they share a sleeping place. “Yawlls,” Ren echoes, and Rose laughs (he knows what _laughing_ is, now). “Do you think she’d like it if I put something in her— our room? As a surprise? I know she’s out today.”

“You seem pretty preoccupied with what Rey likes,” Rose comments, hands deep in the bowels of the rosebush. Ren cuts off a dead branch and doesn't answer. His everyday feelings had gotten easier to identify with Finn’s help, but his feelings about Rey had only become more confusing and complex as time went on. “But I think she’d like it. She likes colorful things. Use whatever you like in here. Just don’t mess with my sunflowers. They’re not ready yet.”

“Thank you,” he says, and ducks his head to avoid looking at Rose as he continues pruning.

* * *

The arrangement he tries to throw together is not too bad, he doesn’t think: he got some of the orange zinnias and some ferns and a few of the red snapdragons, but he’s not sure about the size as he puts the glass vase carefully on the windowsill over the bed and steps back to give it a critical look. _Is it too big? Are the ferns too much?_ She had a few plants in pots around the room to start with, so the bouquet looks like a spot of orange and red fire in a green forest over the bed, lit in the pale golden light of a winter afternoon. _Wrong colors, maybe,_ he thinks, slightly dismayed, and has to remind himself to breathe like Finn said. _Not the end of the world. I’ll just—_

“Ren?” asks a voice, and he turns to see Rey, staring up at him from the ladder. She’s wearing khaki citizen’s clothes, and her hair is tied back in a tight, severe bun: she was on a trip to get food, and he wants to rip the clothes off her back, to put her in _her_ clothes again… but he remembers to breathe. “Are those flowers?”

“Yes,” he says, looking at the floor. She isn’t smiling. He must have done it wrong. “I thought you might— I mean, Rose said I could pick whatever flowers I wanted for you.” He steals a look back up at her, and her eyebrows are raised, her lips parted— that could mean surprise, or maybe shock? He’s not sure. “You don’t like them?”

“I— what? No! I mean, yes— I mean I do like them!” She glances back over at the flowers, and a smile finally spreads out across her face. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

His belly goes wobbly and weak like the floor’s been dropped out from under him. “You like them,” he echoes as she climbs the ladder for a closer look, unable to stop the smile from reaching his own face, delight spreading contagious from her to him. “You _like_ them?”

“Yes, I do, of course I do, and I—I’m so proud. Those empathizing exercises must be working! Finn said you were making progress—” Wait, what? No, this isn’t about Finn or his progress, this is about Rey and his feelings for her. But she’s still talking, smiling beautifully, and he can’t do anything but stand there. “—and it’s so nice to see you working with everyone so well, and really pushing yourself in your comfort areas.”

Ren blinks. “Oh,” he says, dismayed. “No, I—”

“It’s okay! It’s great!” She darts over to the flowers and sniffs them, and smiles at him again. “The help you gave Poe was just priceless, and you’re working with Rose and Finn, and now this— you really are learning that emotions are _good_ and you can learn from them!”

Okay, that stings: he isn’t a moron. “I don’t need empathizing exercises to—”

She sighs, and it’s like the air leaves the room as she looks at him with an expression he can now read perfectly: patience. “It’s okay. It’s hard to learn, and there’s no shame in—”

“You’re not listening,” he says, mimicking her exaggerated, patient tone. “I’m saying I don’t need them where you’re conc—”

“Ren,” she interrupts, shaking her head, “look, I know you don’t think you need them, but they’re working—”

 _“Don’t interrupt me!”_ he bellows in an explosion of frustration, hunched over, and he is _loud:_ he’s never shouted like that before. Rey goes a little white in the face before backing up a step, and _no,_ he hadn’t meant to make her feel afraid, but he knows that look on anyone’s face is the same. “I’m sorry. I— I’m trying to say I don’t need them with _you,_ because I— I could figure out the things, the things I didn’t want you to feel from the start, like, like embarrassing you or hurting you or making you afraid like I just did, and, and— and now I feel guilty because you’re afraid but you _won’t let me talk.”_

The silence hangs between them, a palpable thing. Rey swallows and looks at the flowers again, and to his horror, he sees tears welling up in her eyes. “Sorry,” she manages, wiping her face. “I just, I just— I was really excited and I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s… it’s fine,” he says, feeling drained. This had gone all wrong, all wrong from the start: he should never have picked those flowers. “I’ll throw them out into the compost.”

“You will not,” she says, crossing her arms. “They’re mine and I love them.”

 _I love them. I love them._ It echoes in his mind, a gunshot crack across the landscape of his heart, making his knees go weak as water. “You do?”

“I do,” she says. “You know, it’s not every day I rescue a top-level political prisoner and he hangs around and makes me a bouquet.”

“Where else would I go?” he asks. Did she want him to leave? 

“Oh, no— that was a joke,” she explains, smiling again. “Sorry.”

He rubs his temples. “I wish people could just say what they meant. It would be easier to figure out. I always feel like I’m missing half a conversation and I don’t like it.”

Rey looks back at him. “Well,” she says, shifting her weight from foot to foot, “I mean, people could be blunt to you, but that might be harder. What if someone said, I don’t know, they hated your guts and thought you were annoying and brash, and you thought they liked you? That would be hurtful.”

Ren frowns. “Well, if the first person was straightforward about their true emotions, how could the second person think that they liked them?”

She sighs. “I guess. But if the first person is trying to learn to not be so straightforward, there could be a miscommunication.”

Ren tilts his head, trying to make sense of her words. Who would try to learn to not be— wait, did she mean _him?_ Then who was the second person? “You mean me,” he says flatly, and she gulps a little before looking up at him. 

“I… yes,” she says.

“So who...who’s the second person that I think is annoying?” he asks, bewildered. 

“M… me,” says Rey, scarlet to the roots of her brown hair. 

His mouth falls open. “You? Why, why would I think you’re annoying? You’re… you’re so free and open and, and pretty, and… and you fight for a world you know could be better every day. Why would I hate you?”

Rey’s opening and closing her mouth, looking stunned. “Because… because I’m a lot, I know I am, I tried to have a whole debate with you the first night you came here and I can’t stop thinking about how _bad_ that was.”

“If I hated you, why would I sleep in a bed with you? I, I’m pretty sure people who hate each other don’t share rooms,” he says, trying to smile as she hides her face. “Oh, no, Rey, don’t be embarrassed—”

“I’m so stupid,” comes a muffled wail from behind her hands. “I am just the dumbest idiot.”

A terrible, delicious suspicion is occurring to him as he inches closer, aching to touch her, to pull her hands away from her face so he can see her expression. “Rey, look at me,” he says softly, and she does, lowering her hands to gaze at him. “Do you… you… have strong _good_ feelings about me?”

“Oh, God,” she says, closing her eyes, and he watches avidly as a shudder leaves her body. “So many feelings about you, Ren. All about you. I want to, I want to make sure you never have to go back to that place, and protect you, and, and when I’m away from you it leaves this ache in my chest like I don’t know what to do with myself, and at the same time I wish I could just make you understand so many things even though I know you have to make your own way— you frustrate me, and I never want to be away from you.”

Ren stands there. Surely only his body is standing there on the floor, his mind skipping around the room screaming in unbridled joy, his heart pounding high and heavy, strange and thudding. “I… have those feelings about you, too,” he manages, and watches her face open and bloom into shock and delight. “Rey…”

She darts toward him and kisses him full on the mouth, and before he can even register what is happening she gasps, “Hold on,” and races to the ladder, leaning over the hole in the floor and shouting, “Code Red!” as loud as she can.

“Copy that!” comes Finn’s answer, floating up from the kitchen. “Just let me get my water off the stove—”

“Your funeral!” she shouts, and turns around, grinning at Ren, who is utterly lost again. “It’s an old joke,” she explains, taking his hand (and oh, _oh,_ her hand is gentle and there are calluses on the bases of her fingers but she is so, so wonderful to touch anyway). “Code Red means if you don’t want to hear some inappropriate stuff, you’d better get to the garden for an hour.”

“Inappropriate?” he repeats. “What—?” 

She giggles. “Oh, my god. _Sex_ , Ren.” The smile disappears. “Unless you don’t want to—”

“No, no, I definitely want to,” he says, frozen in place on the floor as she heads to the bed. Sex. Sex with _Rey,_ sex, maybe that orgasm thing again with her: the thought is almost too good to stand. She sits down and takes her shoes off, and he manages to force himself to step closer, his legs so weak with nervous excitement he can barely stand. “Rey. I, I was never in the drawing for, for, being assigned a partner.”

“No, I didn’t think you would have been,” she says lightly, looking up at him. “Snoke probably wanted all your energy spent on your work.”

“Right,” he says, and swallows. “So I, I don’t know how to, where to, what— I don’t know.”

“That’s okay. I’ll help you. First, though, you’ve got to help me get my clothes off.”

And he’s more than happy to do that: the khaki uniform comes off piece by piece, exposing her lithe, freckled body in her plain white cotton underwear and bra, and looking at her, Ren thinks he might just combust, even though he’s barely touched her and only laid a single shy hand on her shoulder to help her with the shirt. Next is her hair, and he reaches up to take out the knot at the nape of her neck, letting all the soft brown hair down to frame her face in waves. He runs his fingers through it as he carefully kisses her again, eyes shut, basking in the sensation of soft hair in his hands before she reaches up and does the same to him, and he’s still fully clothed in borrowed canvas pants and a blue, long-sleeved knit shirt, but _oh,_ her little fingers combing through his hair, massaging his scalp: it sets his skin on fire and his cock (Poe had helpfully taught him some more casual phrases and words, and that was one of them) to swelling up in his pants. Her mouth is hot and soft as honey, gentle in its sweetness.

“You can take off your clothes,” she murmurs, cupping his cheek in her hand and kissing his other one. “Or not. Whatever you want.”

“Too hot,” he gasps, and strips down as fast as he can, practically knocking her over onto the bed in his eagerness. He pulls her underwear off as he kneels between her calves, and there between her legs is— well, it’s not what he’d thought women had looked like naked, but he keeps looking, and it’s… interesting: a rough thatch of curly hair like his own, and between her legs a thing like a half-closed, folded flower bud, dark pink, complicated-looking, and shining wetly. “Can I touch you there?” he asks after a moment, reaching out his hand, and she nods, biting her bottom lip as he drags a finger lightly up and down it.

The outer flesh is a little…well, it’s almost like the wrinkly skin on his own body when he’s not aroused, and it’s slightly cool to the touch in the air, but he pulls the flesh open as carefully as he can and _there,_ there’s a gleaming, slick, wet pink place inside, smooth and soft as velvet, and he drags his finger up and down, testing how she feels. He brushes the top, toward her front, and Rey gives a little moan, so he does it again, and again, listening to her gasp a little before he finds a firm little nub buried somewhere under warm skin and soft flesh. “That?” he asks, and she nods, eyes screwed shut as he begins to touch her there, thumb rubbing at her, back and forth. 

It takes a moment, but she pants out directions for him which he obeys instantly, and before a few minutes has passed she’s clamping her thighs around his hand and groaning through her own climax, face red and teeth bared before slumping back to the bed. “Okay,” she pants, when she can speak again, “now, now— I want, I want this inside me,” and she points at his cock, which hasn’t flagged a bit during the proceedings and is pointing right at her. 

“Where do I even put it?” Ren mutters, opening her gently with his fingers again. She’s much warmer now, and even damper, and his fingers are coming up shiny as he prods around. He slips toward the back, and his index finger disappears into a snug, slick, hot channel, and Rey whimpers: he can feel her squeezing down on his finger. “There?” he asks, pretty sure of the answer. 

“Yes!” she gasps, flinging her head back. “Yes, right there, please—”

Well, he’s never had to be told twice to do anything in his life. Ren draws back, gripping his cock in one hand before fumbling to line it up with her. It’s strange and new and he slips past her entrance, but he gets himself notched in, and exhales hard: he doesn’t think he’s going to fit, but she seems like she very much wants this, so he’ll try, but there’s one thing he has to say first. “Rey,” he whispers, reaching up to palm her soft, small tits in his hands, and _oh,_ there’s so much space on her body he wants to get lost in, but some things can be saved for later.

“What?” she says, peering down at him from her position, flat on her back in bed. 

“I— my name. My name’s not Ren.” He slips his hands down to grace her ribcage, his thumbs tracing her sternum. “It’s really Ben. I want… wanted you to know.”

“Ben,” she whispers, and he closes his eyes and eases his way into the soft velvet clutch of her body, shuddering as he fits and fits and bottoms out, able to go no further, buried to the hilt. “Oh, oh, fuck—”

That’s a word he knows by now. “Fuck,” he agrees, voice a little strained. “You’re, you’re, so good, you feel so good.”

“Move,” Rey gasps, kicking at him lightly with her heels. “You, you have to move—”

“Move?” he says, and thinks she means off her chest, so he lifts his hands, which means he has to move his weight back, which has the effect of moving his cock inside her, and she gasps and he groans and _then_ he understands: _move._ “Okay,” he pants, and braces himself on his forearms, trying to keep his weight from crushing her as he pistons his hips, and it feels so good that he doesn’t think he’ll be able to stop, not ever, not in a million years: the drag and glide and thrust light up his nerve endings, make him choke and gasp her name, and she’s under his body, her hands on his waist as she whispers little encouraging things and finally says—

— _I love you, Ben—_

—and he’s gone, finished, crashing down in tears as he empties himself into her melting, close heat and she croons for him, strokes his hair, holds him through it until he’s lying at her side, one arm clinging to her waist, his forehead buried in her neck as his breathing returns to normal. 

She speaks first, sounding soft and tired. “That was… really good,” she whispers, and presses a kiss to the top of his head. “Next time, we’ll try other stuff, too.”

Ben shuts his eyes. Next time. More stuff. There will be a next time, and there will be more things to explore with Rey, and he will _feel_ it all. “Yeah? I’d like that.”

She smiles and kisses his mouth, wriggling down the bed to reach him, and he traces her lip with his tongue, exploring, testing. The scent of the flowers surround them both, and neither of them hear the door below opening until it’s too late.

“Oh, good Lord,” says Poe Dameron’s voice, jerking them both out of their lazy kissing. Ben sits up and stares while Rey, stammering, tries to cover herself up with the quilts and almost falls out of bed. 

“You’re back!” she squeaks, delighted and blushing. “Did Finn not tell you we have a Code Red?”

Poe sighs with deep patience and looks at the other wall as Rey scrambles for something to put on. Ben hauls himself out of bed and helps her, but doesn’t miss Poe’s raised-eyebrow glance at his body: he wonders what it means. “Finn is currently coding red in the damn garden with Rose, so no, it probably skipped his mind. Heard weird noises and came up to investigate. Am I the only one around here not getting laid?” asks Poe.

“Appears so,” says Ben gravely, shoving his legs into pants, and Poe’s eyebrows shoot up before he cracks up laughing.

“Did you just make a _joke?_ Holy shit.”

“Oh, leave him alone,” Rey says, rolling her eyes as she yanks on a loose green shirt and pair of long pants. “Come on. You can shower and I’ll start dinner. How was your trip?”

Poe descends the ladder, followed by Rey, then Ben. “You know, if I’m going to walk home to a bunch of canoodling every time I come back, maybe I’ll just move to Canada.”

“You wouldn’t,” Rey says, winking at Ben so he’ll know it's a joke. 

“You watch me. Land of the free, of the moose, of the maple syrup—”

Finn, disheveled, bursts in through the back door, followed by an equally rumpled Rose, who is beaming. “Poe! Buddy! How was—”

“Don’t even speak to me,” says Poe in mock sternness, brandishing a finger, “before you get a shower. Because of you, sir, I had to see full-on block and tackle, and Rey’s full-on everything. Unbelievable. The disrespect in my own house. Rose, honey, you have mulch in your hair.”

Rose reaches up and shakes a tangle of moss and bark loose. “Thanks,” she says, wrinkling her nose. 

Ben can’t help it: he starts laughing. He can’t stop: it's like the pent up joy of thirty years has suddenly crashed down over him, and his chest aches, tears run, joy turns into hysterical sobbing. Rose helps him to the sofa, and Finn advises him to _let it all out,_ and he thinks of Rey’s words: _happiness can bring you to tears, and exhilaration can make you feel as high as the sky._ And she’d been right, hadn’t she? Yes, she had, he thinks, gasping for air and wiping his face. 

This is his family now: this funny little patchwork band, and he is going to help them fight to whatever end— and Ben, for the first time in twenty-five years, is _happy._


End file.
